“Rich’s Wacky Writing Woes”

Once upon a time, in the quaint little town of Typewriter Falls, there lived a writer named Rich. Rich was an odd fellow, with a penchant for wearing mismatched socks and a perpetually furrowed brow. His dream? To write the ultimate blog post on writing. Little did he know that his journey would be more twisted than a pretzel factory during a tornado.

Chapter 1: The Great Idea

Rich sat at his antique oak desk, staring at the blinking cursor on his screen. He sipped his lukewarm coffee, hoping for inspiration to strike. Suddenly, it hit him like a rogue semicolon: “How to Write the Perfect Opening Line.” Brilliant! He typed feverishly, his fingers dancing across the keyboard like caffeinated spiders.

Rich, blog writer

But then, disaster struck. His cat, Mr. Whiskers, decided that the keyboard was the perfect place for a nap. Rich tried to shoo him away, but Mr. Whiskers was having none of it. The blog post now read, “How to Write the Perfect opzzzzzzzzzzzzz

My co-pilot is artificially intelligent and not so clever.

The above tidbit of a story was generated by Microsoft Copilot. It is a chatbot that has been around for over a year. It is the replacement for Cortana, the “assistant” to the Bing search engine.

Cortana would answer questions and set calendar reminders. You could give it voice samples so it could recognize your speech. Copilot is much more versatile. In addition to helping you search, Copilot will plan your life and write you a song. That may seem a bit extreme. Do you need a song to go with your plans? Perhaps a simple poem will do.

Copilot can be attached to Bing, Edge, Microsoft 365, and Windows. Ask it anything. You can even ask it for the meaning of life, although you may be disappointed in the answer. “In summary, the meaning of life is multifaceted, encompassing philosophical, scientific, and personal dimensions.” We all know The Meaning of Life is 42, but I digress.

When I asked my artificial friend to write us a story, he invented the above. I can not say that I was pleased with the result. In fact, I can not say anything since I turned off the microphone so he (she?) could not listen. I did not want him or her or they or a “non-binary” being to listen to our conversation. Let’s review the story so far.

You will notice the town is named “Typewriter Falls.” I would have been tempted to name it Typewriter Fails. On the other hand, who uses a typewriter anymore? Perhaps Keyboard Korners would have been better or Keyboard Kove.

Doesn’t it seem a bit odd that the odd fellow in the story is named “Rich?” Who would name a writer that? Perhaps you spotted that the last word of the first sentence and the first word of the next sentence are the same proper name. My co-pilot may be OK at grammar but he certainly needs a copy of The Elements of Style. The second sentence should have simply begun with “He.”

Something “more twisted than a pretzel factory during a tornado” is a variation of a tired cliche. Put that phrase in your artificially enhanced search engine and be amazed at the matches. In fact, I found an item that “was twisted like a pretzel” in a tornado. It was in the June 5th, 2013 story on chasing tornados as reported in National Geographic. I am disappointed in my imaginary friend for giving you such a pathetic saying, but perhaps I digress.

We understand the idea of mismatched socks here. Every time the Roomie formerly known as John does the laundry, socks go missing. We may soon need a separate drawer for socks without a match, but I digress like an artificial copilot.

Mismatched socks villain and coffee thief

I wish I had an antique oak desk like the one mentioned in the story. The small and simple desk in the back room is just big enough to be a landing pad for my toy drone. The computer sits on a small table.

Those who spend a lot of time working at a computer in the morning understand the comment about lukewarm coffee. More worrisome than the coffee going cold is not the rogue semi-colon, but rather a rogue roommate who drinks all the coffee before it goes cold. He would be the villain of my story but I digress…again (and again).

You will see that the mischievous cat is named Mr. Wiskers. I would have named him Mr. Wisker Puss so his initials would be WP, as in Word Press. This would have made his evil intentions clear to the reader. Anyone with a cat knows that a seat between the keyboard and the monitor or even on the keyboard will be the perfect spot for the devious feline.

At the end of the brief Chapter 1, I said to my co-pilot, “Then what happened?” I thought you would want to know since we have now started this exciting story. I got two more brief chapters but alas, I inadvertently erased them. It seems I am not as smart as my Artificially Induced friend. I did not even read them so I can not summarize. We were not too pleased with his initial efforts so I guess it is just as well.

We will leave the co-pilot behind in the future. It is more fun to fly solo anyway.

Categories: #Blogging, #Writing, Anecdote

Tags: AI assistance, Blogging, humor, Microsoft Copilot, Rich Paschall, writing